Metaphor
by usually mostly innocent
Summary: "My life was so boring before you just … dropped outta the sky." How Amy and Rory first met—or, how Rory dropped outta the sky.


**A/N: (I've decided that I love this couple.) Anyway, this story popped into my head during **_**Day of the Moon. **_**You know, at that part when Rory's sitting with Amy's glowy-red-communicator-thing. She starts talking about how much she loves him, but he thinks she's talking about the Doctor because she says he "dropped outta the sky." Later, after she's been rescued, he explains. She rolls her eyes and tells him it was a figure of speech. Of course she meant him.**

**Sorry for rambling. :-/ Anywho, all that to say it got me thinking about how Rory and Amy first met. Enjoy!**

o.0.o.0.o

"I know you think it's him, and I know you think it ought to be him—but it's not; it's you. And when I see you again, I'm gonna tell you properly. Just to see your stupid face.

"My life was so _boring_ before you just … dropped outta the sky."

o.0.o.0.o

Amelia Pond munched mournfully on the end of one red braid. She'd been curled up in the same position, under the same big oak tree, for the past hour and thirty-eight minutes; and she was bored. So bored that she almost wished the next school term would start.

She let out a gusty sigh and stared across the park. The neighborhood kids were playing some kind of game involving a ball. She'd never been much good with balls. Even if she had been, they'd never let her play—not that she'd want to if they did. It looked stupid.

They'd all been born here, and their parents and grandparents had probably been, too. There wasn't any room for a ginger who talked funny and only wanted to play games about her Raggedy Doctor. _Who isn't imaginary_, Amelia thought defiantly. _They're all just stupid_.

She let go of the braid and folded her arms over her chest. There wasn't anything to _do_. Aunt had ordered her to go play outside. (Which really meant that she was busy and didn't want Amelia underfoot.) But all her Raggedy Doctor dolls were _inside_. Aunt hadn't let her bring them. She'd told her to go "play with the other nice children, like a good little girl."

Except that being a good little girl was boring. And she didn't want to play with the other kids because they didn't like her Raggedy Doctor. So she sat under her favorite tree in the park and chewed the ends of her hair to pieces.

A blond girl in the ball game laughed, long and loudly. Amelia swallowed hard, twisting her ginger braid in her fingers. She blinked fast and took a deep breath.

"Once upon a time," she began, her voice only wobbling a little, "the Raggedy Doctor put a whole house—a really big house with too many rooms—into his magical blue box and flew it away into the clouds …"

o.0.o.0.o

Rory Williams' new room smelled awful. His mum'd said the whole house would smell that way for a while, since an "elderly couple with a delicate problem" had lived there before them. He wrinkled his nose and hurried to open the window, but it was wedged shut. The little boy's whole face scrunched up as he jiggled the sash. It stayed stuck solid.

He stood back a moment and thought. His room was _not_ going to smell this way. No one could get any sleep to speak of with a smell like this filling his nose.

Nothing seemed to be wrong with the window on the inside. He pressed his long nose up to the glass, trying to see the other side. It looked like someone had nailed it shut from the outside. _Why would anyone do that?_ Rory wondered.

He sneezed.

"Well that just does it," he declared. "I've gotta … un-nail it somehow." His face wrinkled in thought. A minute later he was scurrying down the stairs, trying not to trip over moving boxes.

o.0.o.0.o

Amelia Pond absolutely refused to sit under that tree and be bored any longer. No matter what her aunt said, the girl _was_ going to get her Raggedy Doctor dolls. However, arguing with Aunt—while certainly preferable to being bored—was not really one of her favorite things.

So the little ginger crept stealthily toward her too-big house. She forgot about chewing the ends of her braids; being sneaky and running was much more fun than sitting alone in the park. Her eyes narrowed as she sighted her next hiding spot.

"One, two, three," she whispered. Then she was dashing across another lawn and behind a bush. However, this bush happened to have a ladder behind it, and she had mistakenly assumed there was room for both it and her back there when there … wasn't. Ladder and girl went crashing to the ground.

Amelia decided that having a ladder fall on you hurt quite a lot. Dazed, she stared up at the bit of roof and sky she could see between the ladder rungs. There was a boy dangling from that roof. His legs kicked wildly at the air as he tried not to fall. She saw in a moment that he wasn't going to succeed.

He dropped—right out of that that small bit of roof and sky—and landed on the ladder with a grunt.

Amelia decided that having a boy fall on the ladder that had already fallen on you hurt more than just having a ladder fall on you. She was just starting to wonder if that made sense when everything went dark.

o.0.o.0.o

"At least my room isn't very high up," Rory mumbled bemusedly. He carefully shook his head and got to his feet. His back felt like one big bruise.

Then he saw her. Her ginger braids were mussed, and her face was white as a sheet. Her eyes were closed. The little boy's eyes filled with horror. "I killed her," he gasped, pushing the ladder off her body. "I killed her _dead_."

What should he do? He wanted to run into the house and get his mum, but she didn't know he was out here with the ladder in the first place. She was vacuuming, and it had been fairly easy to get what he wanted without being caught. If he got her now, he would be grounded forever.

His hands fluttered helplessly over the girl's body. "What do I do?" he wailed, "I-I've _killed_ her!"

"I'm not killed, stupid," the girl muttered, slowly blinking her eyes open. "I'm … fine." She struggled to sit up and winced.

Rory stared at her. His mouth opened and closed a few times, but nothing came out. On his third try, he said, "What were you _doing_ under there?"

"I was sneaking."

"Why?"

The girl hesitated. "Because … because …" Her eyes flickered away, and she took a deep breath. "Because Aunt didn't want me to play with my Raggedy Doctor dolls so I sat in the park but everyone there was stupid and I didn't want to play with them and it was so _boring_." The next breath she took sounded dangerously close to a sob. "I was sneaking back home to … play Raggedy Doctor."

She pushed stray hair out of her face and eyed him.

Rory blinked, not sure what to say. "Oh. Okay. Um … I'm Rory."

Suddenly, the girl smiled. It was a happy, surprised kind of smile—as if she'd suddenly found something unexpected and brilliant. It made her eyes crinkle at the corners. "Amelia Pond," she answered, flicking a ginger braid off her shoulder. "Do you … want to play Raggedy Doctor with me?"

She was still smiling. Her smile did funny things to Rory's insides.

He swallowed.

"Yeah."


End file.
